Featured Post
Related Post
In my recent post on US manufacturing jobs and tariffs, I mentioned a Wall Street Journal article that pointed toward American tariffs having little impact on Chinese exports; the exports are simply being shifted to other countries. In the earlier post, I discussed what that fact meant for US manufacturing jobs. Here, I discuss what .. MORE
Featured Comment
Sam's Links
Sam Enright works on innovation policy at Progress Ireland, an independent policy think tank in Dublin, and runs a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Most relevant to us, on his personal blog, he writes a popular link roundup; what follows is an abridged version of his Links for January. Blogs and short links 1. Henry Oliver .. MORE
Tariffs
We’ve posted the second of two cross-posted articles with Law & Liberty in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump. Today, David Hebert explains why the economic fallout from the tariffs can’t be reversed by the Court’s ruling. From the article: Just over a year ago, citing the International Emergency Economic .. MORE
Tariffs
This morning we’re hosting the first of two cross-posted articles with Law & Liberty in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Learning Resources v. Trump. The first, by John O. McGinnis, provides an overview of the legal aspects of the ruling. From the article: The Supreme Court’s decision in Learning Resources v. Trump will have immediate political .. MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Even people who are otherwise enthusiastic about a free market in labor can get cold feet about immigration once redistribution enters the picture. Some are fond of quoting Milton Friedman, who famously (or infamously) said: “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” On this view, immigration is fine under fully .. MORE
Economic Growth
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is upending professions as diverse as art, cinema, accounting, national defense, and education. Some even argue that AI will render almost all work obsolete. They say its ability to “think” and accomplish tasks previously solely in the realm of human ability will mean that humans will not need to work; the .. MORE
Technology
To prepare for teaching, I am reading a famous article in AI research: The Bitter Lesson, written by Richard Sutton in 2019. I wondered what would seem prescient and if anything would feel like Sutton had gotten it wrong. At the end, I’ll discuss economic implications. Sutton draws from decades of AI history to argue .. MORE
Price Theory
This is the latest in our series of posts in our series on price theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can see all of Cutsinger’s problems and solutions by subscribing to his EconLog RSS feed. Share your proposed solutions in the comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next couple .. MORE
Labor Market
Mass deportation is often framed as a pro‑worker policy. Remove unauthorized immigrants, the argument goes, and native wages will rise as labor supply contracts. This logic is intuitive, politically potent, and economically incomplete. Mass deportation is a massive market intervention. When examined through the lens of labor markets, production complementarities, and historical evidence, mass deportation .. MORE
Labor Market
It’s easy to doomscroll these days. AI, it appears, is coming for our jobs. Even occupations that were previously considered an easy path to a middle-class lifestyle, like lawyer and radiologist, may be subject to the AI chopping block. Yet these stories, despite their flashy headlines, are missing nuance. They examine the seen (and likely) .. MORE
I recently sat down with Milton Friedman, a few days before his 94th birthday, to discuss the impact of two of his most important contributions to economics and liberty: A Monetary History of the United States, 1870-1960 [co-written] with Anna Schwartz, and Capitalism and Freedom. The ideas in both books had tremendous influence on the .. MORE
Characteristically, Friedman had a contrarian take on the Washington consensus. Ironically, the turn toward markets gave new life to the classic institutions of the postwar managed economy, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). No longer working to stabilize a gold-backed currency, the two international organizations offered loans to emerging economies—typically conditional .. MORE
Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776. This edition of Smith’s work is based on Edwin Cannan’s careful 1904 compilation (Methuen and Co., Ltd) of Smith’s fifth edition of the book (1789), the final edition in Smith’s lifetime. Cannan’s preface and introductory remarks .. MORE
Nicely explained. I, too, like the Carbaugh text, and adopted it when I taught International Economics years ago.
Bill, February 6